


Tether to the Mind

by hybridshade (shimyaku)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Challenge Response, Hypnotism, Kink Bingo 2013, M/M, Manipulative Hannibal, Mental Instability, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Manipulation, Pre-Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Someone Help Will Graham
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 20:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shimyaku/pseuds/hybridshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: When Will turns up unannounced at Hannibal's office, he's in a desperate state. Luckily Hannibal has been preparing for such a time. He has just the thing to pick apart the mental knot Will's tied himself into.</p><p><b>A/N</b>: Written for <a href="oriza.dreamwidth.org">Oriza</a> for the <a href="http://hannibal-exchange.dreamwidth.org/">Hannibal Exchange</a> comm over at Dreamwidth. Also works for my hypnosis/mind control square for <a href="http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/">kink bingo</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Tether to the Mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Riza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riza/gifts).



~

It was after hours, and the ruled paper that rested beneath Hannibal's fingertips was near two-thirds full of his own neatly sloped penmanship. There were still two patients for whom he had yet to note down his observations for, but after years of fastidious practice his mind had become something of a steel trap – details were of the utmost import and to forget a few lines of dialogue after a mere hour or two might be considered some sort of failure on his part. He prided himself on his ability to retain such seemingly insignificant things, but he would not be in the position he was today were it not so. Of course, once he _did_ put it all in his journal he would allow himself to cast said things to the side, yet at that moment, something else entirely urged him to set down his pen.

Not a minute later the door clicked open and there stood Will Graham, swaying on his feet.

Hannibal rose from his chair and approached him, taking in the man's dishevelled state. His face was drawn and grey, and he looked a week without sleep such were the bruising shadows that encircled his eye sockets.

The eyes themselves however, they told a different sort of story. Hannibal had little doubt about the origins of Will's waning sanity, they had already shared several unofficial 'sessions' together during which Will had confessed some of his thoughts about his work with the Bureau and its effect of him, and Hannibal in turn was beginning to notice the physical representations of it. Those eyes, for example. Within them he could see the crumbling edges of Will's brittle grip on reality, and now more than ever those rocky banks had eroded away to nearly nothing, leaving only a growing abyss of blackness in their wake.

The more Will looked upon true evil, the more that blackness took hold. Hannibal had been sitting back and watching it grow with peaked interest from the sidelines, and finally Will had come to him for true guidance, not the charades of such that had come before whilst they'd been sitting there in that very same room. Will had reached his breaking point, and Hannibal was – with the delicacy of a thief in the night – going to latch on to the opportunity with both hands and steal it away.

He wanted to sink his claws in deep, suck out that foreign blackness and fill the hollow with himself.

"Doct—" Will cleared his throat, "You said you could…"

Hannibal gave a slow smile. "And I can."

"Whatever you have to… I just need it to… to stop." Will's shoulders slumped as if they'd been relieved of a great weight and had taken on a new burden at the same time.

"Surely you would have realised by now that I am a man of my word. I've said on more than one occasion that I think my methods may help you. All I need, in effect, is your willingness to _try_."

Hannibal watched as Will's gaze skipped nervously about the room before settling somewhere just above Hannibal's left shoulder. The tendons in his neck pulled taut as he clenched his jaw and nodded reluctantly, and Hannibal gestured to the armchair on the other side of the room, the one in which Will usually opted to sit – that is, when he wasn't inspecting the volumes of Hannibal's library, or mindlessly wearing tracks into the carpet.

Once he was comfortable, Hannibal pulled his own chair closer and sat immediately opposite – had he wanted to, he could have reached across the gap to touch Will's knee, but things between them were still too unfamiliar for such an action. One day, perhaps.

"You know I'm fond of the various methods of hypnosis, so I thought we might try a little something. I realise right now that you probably aren't able to get past all the chaos and noise inside your mind, that it must be overwhelming at times, you may even feel as though you're far away despite that we're sitting so closely. But I assure you, there is a place of calm somewhere within you, and with my help I believe you can find it."

Will swallowed, his eyes blinking several times in rapid succession. "It's just… the scene that I walked today… this killer is—"

"Will, stop." Hannibal held his hand up as a signal, nearly smiling when Will ceased immediately. "What you saw isn't so much the imperative. We may get to it after, once you've calmed yourself, but I think reliving the kill right now might not be the right choice. So, indulge me if you will. Close your eyes, focus on my voice, relax your grip on your mind and allow me to guide you. Do not fight me or we may as well not even begin."

Taking a deep breath, Will unclenched his hands and shook them loose. He sunk back in the thick padding of the chair, closing his eyes and nodding once he was ready.

"Good," Hannibal acknowledged, "Now breathe deeply. Slowly. Focus on my voice… It's calm around you. You're safe here. Nothing can hurt you. Breathe deeply. Listen only to my voice…"

Hannibal repeated similar phrase patterns until Will's body was fully relaxed in the chair, his hands limp on the arm rests and his jaw slackened, leaving his lips just slightly parted. Finally it was time to proceed.

"Now picture yourself at the top of a staircase. You're going down one step at a time. When you reach the bottom you're going to find yourself in a safe place. Somewhere that will be all your own and where you can achieve peace of mind. Clarity. Contentment. Are you there yet, Will? Tell me what you see."

Will hummed and nodded lightly. "I'm in a garden. It's so green… like a postcard. _Too_ green, even. There's a wrought iron park bench. And a koi pond. It's warm."

"Good," Hannibal said softly, praising, "That's very good, Will. Why don't you take a seat on the bench?"

"Yes, I'm… sitting on the bench now. I can see the fish from here. Making ripples in the surface of the water."

With minimal movement, Hannibal reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a small coin. He edged himself forward on the chair so his and Will's knees were almost touching.

"I want you to hold your hand out for me, Will, can you do that? You're going to feel something drop onto your palm." Hannibal waited for Will to respond, his wrist slowly rotating until his hand was palm-side-up. He moved as close as he was able to without making contact and dropped the coin. "Do you feel that, Will? It's an old coin. Close your fingers around it. There's no need to look at it, just feel the weight of it, its shape, the worn edges.

"Commit this coin and this place to memory. Inspect their every detail, absorb it. There are endless doors within your mind, Will. Only one of them leads to here, but now that you have found it you will always remember where it is. You can always come back to this place at any time. That coin is like a key, and it will unlock this place of tranquillity for you any time you need it. But it is also your anchor, so that you may find your way back."

~

Will snapped back to reality, stumbling back on his heels until his back met the wall.

His chest was heaving and his body with buzzing with panic, his eyes slightly unfocussed. He almost dared not to look, but he swallowed down the fear and forced himself to glance down. There were three bloody smudges on the floor from where his shoe had stepped in the victim's blood pool, but his hands were mercifully clean save only for the faint ink marks where he'd scribbled down a note the day before.

He pressed a thumb and forefinger into the inner edges of his eye sockets and squeezed. Meanwhile, his other hand was searching his trouser pocket, fingers curling around the coin they found there.

It had been almost a month since he'd gone to Dr Lecter for help. He'd shown up completely unannounced, but the more he pondered over it the more he felt as though the good Doctor had somehow been expecting him. Regardless, he'd been desperate enough at the time to agree to Lecter's favoured method of hypnosis therapy – not that he had anything against it as such, it was just that Will felt he already had enough shit curdling his brain matter, he didn't really want any more hands stirring the pot, so to speak. But then the Doctor had gone and surprised him again, had given him the gift of serenity when he'd needed it most.

In hindsight he knew he should probably have accepted Dr Lecter's offers for help much sooner than he had, but he'd just been _so sure_ that he would be able to handle it all. Admittedly he'd noticed that it had been becoming harder and harder to break himself away from the killers' mindsets, to step back from the violence and into his own shoes, into reality again. But he'd just blamed the mix of fatigue and the particular brutality of the crimes. That was, until suddenly he hadn't been able to take that same step back, his inner chaos had momentarily overwhelmed him and he'd ended up over the victim's body, wrist-deep in her vicious wounds just like the killer had been, hours-old blood staining his skin.

Now he had an out and he'd been using it with relish – would do for as long as the reprieve lasted. There was no doubt in his mind that this new facility would eventually fade, and Will hoped to the Powers That Be that Dr Lecter had a few more psychiatrist-grade tricks up his sleeve yet. For now, though, Will just let himself breathe, pressing hard on the coin between his fingertips. The design on it embedded deep into his flesh – a head on one side, and some kind of coat-of-arms on the other. Both those and the writing that accompanied them were wholly unfamiliar to Will, and as he'd ascertained once he'd finally 'awoken' back in Dr Lecter's office that night, it was a very old coin, and seemingly not something one could easily acquire. Will had tried to protest at first but Lecter had insisted he hold on to it for the time being, for which he'd been secretly grateful. Logically he'd known that any small object would likely have worked in its place, but something deep in his mind had locked on to the weight and feel of the coin, just as Lecter had described at the time, and he _knew_ that now nothing else would work in quite the same way.

Once he'd lingered for a few minutes in his 'safe place', Will heaved a sigh and let the coin drop back into the depths of his pocket. He then stepped towards the door – Jack would be waiting.

~

Will's sessions continued. Hannibal would accept nothing less.

There had been a few slips in the couple of months since they'd begun, but given Will's ability and his unstable mentality during cases, that was to be expected. He wasn't worried at all, and certainly not bothered by it in any way – not when it meant he could take the opportunity experiment with Will, testing the effects of various stimuli whilst he was mentally ensconced in his 'safe place', his awareness of the outside world almost completely dulled.

The coin had remained Will's figurative key all the while, and Hannibal was in his third week of introducing certain smells to Will's semi-conscious presence. Even while he talked, he kept his movements subtle and never mentioned his intentions. Will didn't seem to have caught on, and certainly he'd never mentioned any particular changes that had troubled him.

Apparently they had reached a modicum of trust somewhere along the way, where Will had mostly ceased asking inane questions of his methods and complied with his requests without too much displeasure. This pleased Hannibal greatly, as did their general progress with Will's sessions. Never let it be said that he wasn't a goal-oriented man.

Satisfied, Hannibal pocketed his handkerchief and set about luring Will back to the surface.

~

He was still agitatedly thumbing the edge of the coin even as he backed away from the crime scene and headed back to where the coroner's van and forensics team were waiting.

Jack and the lab crew were all there to greet him, as was Dr Lecter, who was lingering somewhere in the back. He'd taken to showing up on their investigations more and more often, casually offering his insights whenever they were warranted. Will had already called him out on it, but he'd explained it away with a simple 'it's somewhat interesting'. Will supposed that was as good a reason as any, though knowing Dr Lecter, he didn't believe for a second that it was the man's _only_ reason – he was far too deep and well-read for such trivialities.

Will's voice was shaky at best as he relayed his findings on the killer's movements and motivations, but besides a fierce eyeballing from Katz, no one made any mention of his current state before hurrying off to do their job. The coin was cutting deep into his palm by the time Dr Lecter approached him, asking after his well-being.

"I'm fine," he said shortly, "I just need a minute."

Lecter made no mention of the fact that it had already been a good fifteen minutes since he'd left the scene. Instead he flicked his eyes downward and then back up to meet Will's. The question in them was clear.

"I've been using it like always, it's just… not as effective as it used to be. Maybe I've acclimatised to it or something."

"There are still things we have yet to try, Will. Don't despair."

"Perhaps, but…" Will turned away, "I worry about the in-between times."

Gravel crunched underfoot as the Doctor stepped to one side, coming up behind Will's shoulder. A hand landed gently atop his shoulder blade and Will could feel his body hovering close by, though that hand was the only point of contact. Were it anyone else Will likely would have flinched away, but he'd been allowing Dr Lecter to become closer lately, in a physical sense. It was only a brief touch here and a clap on the back there, but for Will that was a relatively big deal. No doubt it had something to do with their sessions together – what with Lecter talking him through the hypnosis his voice had somehow ingrained itself into Will's mind, a single seed buried down deep beneath the surface where it had taken root and begun to sprout.

"I've told you before that my door is always open," Dr Lecter said softly, and Will imagined he could feel the man's breath puffing over the back of his neck, "Whether at my office or at my home, it does not matter." 

Will turned his head slightly and caught the scent of Lecter's cologne.

Immediately his body felt light again, that wearying weight momentarily lifted, and Will's toes curled in his shoes.

~

Will's eyes blinked open suddenly. His breath was caught in his throat, and his eyes were coloured with something Hannibal didn't yet venture putting a name to.

"Will? Where are you, Will?" 

Hannibal sat forward and placed a hand upon Will's knee.

"I-… I get it now. This," Will blithely swept his hand to the side and his gaze followed, indicating the space around them, " _This_ is my garden. Admittedly it's not as green, but… the sentiment…"

Hannibal's eyes shone. "To hear that pleases me greatly."

**-END-**


End file.
